Jury convicts Peterborough man on child porn possession

MANCHESTER — A Peterborough man faces up to 90 years in state prison after being convicted in Hillsborough Superior Court of six counts of possession of child pornography.

Michael Donnelly, 28, was found guilty by a jury last week of keeping obscene photographs of minors on a family computer. The material was stored in a folder labeled "Mikey's Stuff," prosecutors said.

The photos were discovered after Donnelly's mother took the computer to a friend for repair because it had been freezing up, police said, and the friend discovered the obscene material and turned the computer over to authorities.

A computer forensics expert testified that he found "dozens" of files with names associated with child sexual exploitation that had been accessed using a file-sharing service known as Frostwire.

A Peterborough police officer testified that Donnelly admitted downloading child pornography "once or twice," and claimed to have erased the material.